The Gentlemen

Once upon a time I loved Guy Ritchie and his very distinctive style. His debut film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was wonderfully remarkable for its time and broke some new ground, shattering templates and manners - offering gangsters, storytelling and excessive violence in a way that at least I had never seen before. Snatch was fun, too. His first film about the rock and roll-ish, roaringly neurotic, super-intelligent Sherlock Holmes was also a lot of fun. It was style at its best, dripping with character and spot-on comedy.

But yes... The last 15 years have not been kind to old Guy. I haven't liked a single thing he's put together since 2009. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows was rubbish, The Man From Uncle was disappointing, while King Arthur failed too. Then, Aladdin wasn't much better and The Gentlemen (the film) was, to me, just a dull rehash of Snatch, but without the character and naturally chatty dialogue that once defined Ritchie, and I didn't like the film much. As a result, I had no real expectations (at least not very high ones) for Netflix's upcoming TV series based on the same film universe. But I was wrong.

Because there is no doubt that Ritchie has not been this sharp in over 20 years. Here he has managed to get back to his old style, toning down some of the posing and letting the characters breathe rather than trying to force them out of the TV and into my arms. It's less intrusive, more natural, and as each individual character (of those in focus) is given more time and more space, Ritchie's chatty gangster banter breathes in a way it hasn't since Snatch. Something I really appreciate.

The story revolves around Theo James' Eddie Halstead, the son of a wealthy English man, who upon returning home from his time in the army discovers that his late father's wealth is in dire straits, oh... and funded by being the country's biggest marijuana farm. As the new proprietor of this drug empire, Eddie gets wrapped up in bloody feuds with London's biggest crime lords, all while his clueless older brother and his cocaine habit cause all sorts of problems. It's all about keeping your head above water, lying, negotiating, threatening, stealing and prioritising who to ally with and who to leave by the wayside, and as usual with Ritchie, this is a story packed with unexpected surprises and cleverly structured crime chains.

The Netflix series is, of course, partially based on the feature film, but there's no Matthew McConaughey, Henry Golding or Charlie Hunnam (thankfully). Instead, gangster boss Mike Pearson is mostly a briefly mentioned figure in the background, which serves Eddie's story well. James takes the lead here as Eddie and gives the finest performance of his career in The Gentlemen. His ability does wonders for the balance of the dialogue and the general tone, here, as he plays the character tight and restrained while many of the characters around him are as wildly out of control and extroverted as everyone is in, say, Snatch. Ritchie has had the good taste to anchor the plot's mainstays in thoughtfulness and intelligence rather than poor impulse control and overplayed Cockney gargling, and in this case it really makes all the difference.

The Gentlemen is dark, stylistic, violent, quick, funny and very good. Ritchie's iconic style has not been managed very well in the last 15 years, but it deserves to be seen, in the best way possible - which it does here. Starting on Thursday March 7, Netflix offers the most wonderful comeback of the year.